Page 53 of Troy Story
Even if she loved Stuart, she wasn’t sure he could fill that role.
* * *
Stuart was havinga hell of a week. During the midday meal, he barely paid attention to the surrounding conversation as Emilia and Clarissa discussed their plans for the weekend. After shutting him out for days, they’d finally come around. He couldn’t say the same for Dusty. He’d approached her yesterday, but instead of apologizing, he’d tried to make her see reason. To understand how much he had to lose. But his attempts had only infuriated her. Now things between them were so prickly he didn’t know what to do.
Emilia nudged him. “Stuart? Are you listening to me?”
He pushed Dusty from his mind. “Sorry. What did you ask me?”
“Since tomorrow’s our day off, we’re going out tonight. A little drinking, a little karaoke, some late-night fun. You in?”
“I’ll pass. I’m not up for it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Enough moping. Go make up with Dusty so we can have our happy couple back.”
He set his plate to the side. Normally he loved stuffed vine leaves, but he’d lost his appetite. “I tried, but she wouldn’t listen.”
Emilia waved her fork at him. “You mean she wouldn’t listen when you tried to justify your actions? That’s not a true apology.”
“Just go in there and grovel,” Clarissa said.
TJ walked over to their side of the table and grabbed a piece of pita bread. “Women love a good grovel. That’s one of the first rules of rom-coms. Am I right?”
“Absolutely,” Emilia said to him. “Teej, you coming on our bar crawl tonight?”
“Hell, yeah. We need to let off steam after this week. I got stuck in Hughes’ trench three days running, and it’s the worst. He’s so focused on finding more skeletons that he wouldn’t let us take our morning break.”
Emilia shot Stuart a look. “See? Everyone’s going. I’m sure Dusty will be up for it.”
But she’d have more fun if he wasn’t there. “I’ll pass. Not because of her. I could use the time to catch up.”
Maybe he was stretching the truth, but he had hours of work ahead of him, thanks to his boss. The director might behave like a petty tyrant while overseeing his trench, but he put minimal effort into writing up his field notes. Stuart had been cobbling together the daily site reports from the other students’ notebooks.
Since Kerim and Dr. Hughes had already left for Çanakkale, Stuart was in charge of the afternoon’s lab work. He didn’t have the heart to play the role of taskmaster. Instead, he let everyone go early so they could get ready for their night out in Güzelyali.
For the next two hours, he holed up in the lab and concentrated on his report. At six, he heard a couple of vehicles pull onto the gravel driveway, followed by the sound of raised voices, a flurry of laughter, and the slamming of doors. He went to the open window, watching wistfully as the taxis pulled away. Rather than return to his work, he headed for the showers to wash off the day’s dust and grime.
Though the water wavered between lukewarm and downright chilly, his mood improved once he was done. He ambled over to the kitchen to grab a beer from the fridge, only to recall they’d run out last night. As he was leaving a note to buy more, his phone buzzed.
TJ had sent him a text:You there?
He responded right away:Yeah. Everything OK?
TJ:Go into the library.
Had TJ left his wallet there? He’d just have to suck it up and borrow money from someone in the group because Stuart wasn’t about to drive into Güzelyali to bring it to him. He walked over to the library and opened the door. Dusty sat at a far table, earbuds on, surrounded by a stack of excavation reports. He swallowed hard, rendered speechless at the sight of her. Over the past few days, he’d missed their closeness more than he thought possible.
She took out her earbuds and gave him a cursory glance. “What’s up?”
“What are you doing here?”
“Working on my dissertation. Or attempting to. But these site reports are boring as fuck.”
“I thought you were going out tonight.”
“I am. We’re leaving at six thirty.” She peeked at her phone. “Shit, it’s a quarter past six. I should get ready.”
“I think you got the time wrong. They left fifteen minutes ago.”
